RK Marya MD PhD
Professor and Head Unit of Physiology, School of Medicine Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences Asian Institute of Medicine, Science and Technology (AIMST)
Bedong, Kedah Darul Aman Malaysia
Jitendar P Vij
Jaypee Brothers Medical Publishers (P) Ltd
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History of Medicine
© 2009, RK Marya
All rights reserved. No part of this publication should be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means: electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author and the publisher.
First Edition: 2009
9788184485417
Typeset at JPBMP typesetting unit
Printed at Ajanta Offset & Packagings Ltd., New Delhi
4Preface
What we know about medicine today is the result of discoveries made by men and women over thousands of years. History of medicine is not just a continuum of scientific achievements. It is deeply influenced by the personalities of the men and women who made these breakthroughs. This field's greatest practitioners were, like the rest of us, human beings with flaws and weaknesses. Risk-takers and rebels, they frequently challenged conventional wisdom and stirred storms of controversy. Some were ridiculed, even reviled, in their own time. Yet these same people made some of history's greatest medical discoveries and changed the path of medicine.
“It has always been the fate of those who have improved the arts and sciences by their discoveries, to be beset by envy, malice, hatred, detraction, and calumny.” Leopold Auenbrugger (1722–1809)
This book traces the development of medicine from the ancient treatments by charms and spells or going on a pilgrimage or even by a touch by the King or the Queen to the modern transplant and robotic surgery. In short, biographic sketches highlight the role of eminent physicians, each taking a small step to the modernization of medicine.
Many of the discoveries discussed in this book would seem to be a result of serendipity or a chance discovery. Actually, behind these “chance discoveries” lie decades of hard work. Millions must have seen an apple falling from a tree but it was left to Newton to interpret its significance. A seed grows into a sapling only if it falls on a fertile and prepared 5ground. As one Nobel laureate, Charles Nicolle commented: “Fortune favors only those who know how to court her.”
While writing this book, the aim has been to make the text highly informative yet short and interesting. The stories and legends woven around the historical figures provide flesh and blood to the bone dry history of medicine. The book is expected to find favor with all the medical students as well as their teachers and even laymen.
History of medicine is becoming a part of undergraduate medical curriculum in most of the medical schools in the West. Why should modern physicians read history of medicine? This question is best answered by the following quotation by an eminent 19th century surgeon:
“Only a man who is familiar with the art and science of the past is competent to aid in the progress in its future.”
Theodor Billroth (1829–1894)
I am grateful to Shri Jitendar P Vij (Chairman and Managing Director) and Mr Tarun Duneja (Director–Publishing) of Jaypee Brothers Medical Publishers (P) Ltd, New Delhi, for their wholehearted cooperation in the publication of this book.
R K Marya
(E-Mail: rkumarmarya@yahoo.com)